


No One's Gonna Tame You

by writeitininkorinblood



Category: Cursed (TV 2020)
Genre: Imprisonment, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:13:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27358570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writeitininkorinblood/pseuds/writeitininkorinblood
Summary: When the Fey capture Iris, Nimue can't bring herself to sentence the child to death and instead locks her in the dungeons. She finds an unlikely ally in an ex-Paladin who knows how it feels to think yourself unworthy.
Relationships: Gawain | The Green Knight/The Weeping Monk | Lancelot (Cursed)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 30





	No One's Gonna Tame You

**Author's Note:**

> Iris is this fandom's most underrated character and it's time to fix that.
> 
> Set several months after after the end of season 1. The Fey have control of Gramaire again now. Just because I say so :')

When Gawain had come barrelling into the throne room to tell Nimue they’d captured Iris, she hadn’t known how to react. A tiny, vengeful part of her wanted to sentence the girl to death for her attempted assassination but regardless of what she had tried to do, Iris was a child. From what Morgana had explained, her life had not been easy. It hardly justified shooting two arrows into someone with the intent to kill, but Nimue understood as well as anyone that sometimes circumstance forced actions out of you that you wouldn’t normally take. It did not escape her notice that Iris could have killed her at any point at Nemos or at Gramaire – that she didn’t take her chance earlier suggested that perhaps she’d be hesitant. Perhaps some conscience still remained.

Even if Nimue wasn’t about to send the girl to the gallows, she was too dangerous to just let go. If she’d tried to kill the Fey Queen once, then there was no saying she wouldn’t do it again. Besides, there was word that she’d become a key figure in the new wave of the Red Paladins, practically replacing Lancelot as their golden child, since he’d deserted. Granting her freedom was not an option, which meant they had no choice but to keep her captive. Gramaire’s dungeons had seen little use since Nimue had officially taken over as ruler of the town, but they were hardly the most inviting of accommodations. Regardless, they were the most sensible place to keep Iris so, somewhat reluctantly, she ordered her sent there. In the same breath she also ordered for a proper bed to be brought down, and some furs and decent food. They were in the habit of surviving however necessary, not of starving children in bleak dungeons. 

Gawain was all too happy to escort Iris down to a cell. She had shot his sister and pledged allegiance to the people who had systematically destroyed his boyfriend, so it was difficult to find sympathy for her. He knew she was young, but she didn’t act it. Even as he held the rope that bound her hands and held a sword at his side, just in case she tried anything, she held her head high with an air of superiority. Nimue had survived her arrows, they’d captured her, and now they were imprisoning her, and yet she still thought she was better than all of them just because they were Fey and she was human. While Gawain was fairly sure everything he’d seen and done in the name of protecting his people hadn’t completely turned him into a monster devoid of sympathy, she was hardly asking for any.

“God will judge you for this,” she said simply, as he turned the key in the lock of the cell.

“Yeah I’m sure I’ll be weighed in the balance and found wanting,” he agreed, because from what he understood of her Christian religion, a lot of what he did would provoke her god’s wrath. “But there’s a place for me with the Hidden. If your god had a place at his side for you, I doubt he’d have let you end up here.”

It was harsh but he was angry. She had almost cost him the one person he had left that he counted as family, and there was no sign of childlike innocence in her eyes to mitigate his resentment. He was rough when he untied her hands and pushed her into the cell, slamming the barred door shut and locking it. If it were up to him, it would never be unlocked again.

“Someone is bringing you food,” he said gruffly, because he promised Nimue he’d arrange something.

Then he turned and walked away, thoroughly content to never spend another moment of his life thinking about her.

That lasted two hours.

He wasn’t sure how Lancelot had found out she was even in the town, since Nimue had ordered there to be no public announcement of her capture. The Fey had understandably taken her presumed death poorly and even though she had eventually made it back to them alive she didn’t know for sure that no one would go after Iris for revenge. It was safer if knowledge of her presence was kept on a need to know basis. And Lancelot did not need to know.

It was obvious the second he walked into their bedroom that he had something on his mind. He was pacing, rather that coming to sit beside where Gawain was reading on the bed, chewing on his lip and scuffing his feet against the floor when he’d usually walk to silently.

“What’s wrong?” Gawain questioned, putting down the book. He knew Lancelot far too well by now to miss the signs that something had happened.

“I want to talk to her,” Lancelot said, not stopping his pacing.

Gawain blinked. Lancelot was free to talk to anyone he wanted to – he’d long-since settled in with the Fey, even if there were still the occasional outliers who held grudges.

“Who?” he had to ask, when his mind couldn’t throw up any suggestions of its own.

“The human girl.”

“Absolutely not.”  
Even from the few comments he’d heard from her, Iris clearly hadn’t given up her unwavering belief in the corrupted faith of the Red Paladins. She still shared the same opinions as the people who had raised Lancelot, still believed them to be the honest and divine truth, and Gawain wasn’t going to let Lancelot hear another word about how damned or demon-like or evil he was just for being Fey. He’d seen the man hurt himself for that particular perceived ‘sin’ too many times, and he would gladly never have to see it again. Iris would just open old wounds, and encourage Lancelot to make new ones. So Gawain was adamant, but Lancelot seemed unswayed.

“I am not asking, Gawain. I don’t need your permission,” he said.

That was new. If it were anything else he was asking for so forcefully then Gawain would be over the moon – the Ash Man had clearly been raised to do as he was told and be content with what was ‘graciously’ given to him, and it had taken time and effort to help him start to deconstruct the notion that he wasn’t allowed an opinion. But did it have to be _this_ opinion?

Still, clearly Lancelot was already convinced this was something he wanted to do, and he was right, he didn’t need permission. All of Gawain’s soldiers were well aware that he trusted Lancelot with his life, and since they were the ones guarding the dungeon now, and by extension Iris, he’d almost certainly be able to convince them to let him down. And the last thing Gawain was going to do was tell them not to. He didn’t want them to start thinking there were reasons to distrust the Ash Man. If Lancelot had set his mind to visiting the girl then he was right in thinking Gawain wouldn’t actively stand in his way, but that didn’t explain why he’d come to their room rather than head straight to her cell.  
“Why bring it up, then?” Gawain asked, curious.

“I want to talk about it.”

That was even rarer than Lancelot asking for something. He never wanted to talk about anything, far preferring actions over words, which often led to Gawain begging him to share his feelings because he wasn’t a mind reader and he just wanted to understand what was going through that complex thought process of his. As much as Gawain had wanted to put Iris out of sight and out of mind for the rest of his life, clearly that wasn’t an option if he wanted to make good on his past promises that he’d always want to listen to whatever Lancelot needed to talk about.

“Okay,” he sighed. “We can talk about it. Why do you want to talk to the despicable waste of life that is the human child?”

Lancelot shot him a glare.

“I understand her,” he tried to explain, but he knew it wouldn’t be enough to make Gawain see things the way he did.

As expected, the knight just raised an eyebrow at him.  
“Should I be worried you’re about to set fire to the castle and shoot Nimue?”  
“No. But I know what it is like to be made to feel useless. Unworthy.”

Ducking his head to hide to flush of shame crawling up his cheeks, Lancelot turned away. It wasn’t an emotion any of his newfound friends had let him feel in a while, but he still remembered the icy cold embrace of it. As if he could read his mind, Gawain got up from the bed and snaked his arms around Lancelot’s waist, pressing a kiss to the back of his neck where it was revealed by the bun his hair was in. He didn’t address the implicit meaning behind his lover’s words, instead returning on the topic at hand. They could circle back to Lancelot’s inherent self-doubt later.  
“How do you know she feels like that?” Gawain mumbled, lips close to Lancelot’s ear in a way that made him shiver.

He wasn’t stupid. Gawain was trying to distract him and he knew it, but he wouldn’t be swayed. He was going to talk to Iris and he was going alone, because if he didn’t he knew no one else would, and he understood how it felt to be the only one of your kind in a hostile place.  
“She wouldn’t have done something so desperate if she didn’t,” he said firmly. “I’m going, Gawain.”

“Yes,” Gawain sighed, letting him go. “I know you are. Just please come back here when you’re done and talk to me. I don’t want her getting into your head.”

Lancelot agreed with a kiss and slipped back out the door, leaving Gawain to fall face first onto the bed with a groan. Why did he have the feeling this was going to be a terrible idea?


End file.
